Send "Jesca Hoop " Ringtones to your Cell 
| Drownedinsound |
 "She is an old soul, like a black pearl, a good witch or a red moon," says Tom Waits of his children’s former nanny. But put this surreal celebrity connection to one side for a moment, as there might be more to this sentence than abstract wordplay. True, when Jesca Hoop sings she conjures up the wisdom of a woman who has lived a dozen lifetimes. Whether as a result of her humble Mormon upbringing or her years in the mountains of Arizona, there is a refined confidence in Hoop’s vocals that suggests a soul stacked with stories from the fringes of society; from the the very brink of civilisation. It is a surprise then, that Jesca Hoop manages to conglomerate her experiences of such abstract cultural landscapes into an album that is weirdly accessible, with a strange universality at its core. As ‘Whispering Light’ opens with almost avian a cappella hoots, Hunting My Dress is immediately fixed in the mystical forest of an ancient time. Muted guitars click through as though peering out from behind trees or lost in the long grass, while the rhythm wanders and wanders. Hoop’s slurred vocals add to the sense of the unknown; her chants become beautifully sinister. ‘Feast Of The Heart’ is much less subtle, but no less unsettling. The industrial percussion adds a Patrick Wolf-esque agony, while Hoop’s voice is so tightly compressed and distorted that there is a real feeling of a struggle to escape. The next track, ‘Angel Mom’, has conversely modest beginnings, with gently strummed guitar and hauntingly sweet vocals. But two minutes in, and the industrialism that its predecessor suggested comes crashing through the stereo, creating a powerful (surely Björk-inspired) emotional duality....full text |
| Musicomh |
| Jesca Hoop's debut LP Hunting My Dress kicks off with Whispering Light, a track introduced to the listener through a bizarre and enchanting chorus of vocal trickery that sounds like a chorus of pan pipes. It then eases in to a darker, moody territory with lyrics like "and lightning rods will guide your journey home / and revelations from a fist of bones." The echoes and tone of which sound like they are being recited as part of a clandestine ceremony in the bowels of a stone monastery. In a good way. The mood lightens a little with the opening of The Kingdom. The track is bookended by a traditional folk guitar and singing before those pan pipe vocals rise up again and guide you in to a composition more sinister in feeling with shades of Elvis Costello's When I Was Cruel. The antiquated lyrics speaking of "brethren" and "promised lands" signal the traditional folk influences on display throughout the album as well as betray the influence Hoop's strict Mormon upbringing has had on her songwriting. Almost as a reminder of which century we're in, Feast Of The Heart begins with a riff that would be at home on a Radiohead album before Hoop bursts in with PJ Harvey-esque vocals. Those edgier rock vocals compete throughout the song with the sweeter, folky tones of the voice evidenced on the preceding tracks. Towards the end of the song the main instruments and vocals fade out to reveal the hidden artefacts that are lurking under the surface of the production, threatening to draw you in to an eerie underworld before a final crescendo of noise to wake you up again. Angel Mom continues to showcase the inventiveness and vast range of ideas between and even within each song....full text |
| Uncut |
| Raised as a Mormon and championed by Tom Waits (she worked as nanny to his kids), Jesca Hoop's music dazzles with a similarly contrary set of influences. In a voice that ranges from gentle, crystalline charm to edgy intensity, she's in turn playful ("Whispering Light"), bluesy ("Four Dreams"), haunting ("Angel Mom"), folky ("Murder Of Birds'', on which she duets with Elbow's Guy Garvey). What prevents this all from becoming a mish-mash of textures is Hoop's single-minded passion, which lends a self-assured cohesion to her diversity. Nigel Williamson...full text |
Jesca Hoop lyrics
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